A new reusable quadriaxial strain transducer

The reusable quadriaxial strain transducer consists of an eight-arm (at 45 degrees from one another) star-shaped plane-sensitive element. Two strain gages are mounted to the inner and outer sides of each arm in the neighborhood of the extremity where hard oblique pins are fixed. The pins are impressed into the surface of the material so the strains on the surface induce bending and torsional displacements of the arms. The paper describes the transducer design and the calibration procedure. Experimental results obtained on wood materials are analyzed.